I don't really like Gimp's interface, Paint.NET is limited and GraphicsGale is sort of archaic. Cosmigo ProMotion looks like it could be good, anyone use it? Seems a bit pricey at $78/92 but of course cheaper than Photoshop.

I used to like Jasc Paint Shop Pro 7, but the newer versions Corel makes are more for photos.

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15 Answers
15

It's a fairly basic pixel graphics editor with animation support, but I do prefer it over Graphics Gale as ASE has proper alpha channel support and the UI is cleaner, a bit reminiscent of Deluxe Paint. It has layer support and basic onion skinning.

For proper 2D pixelling, I've never seen anything on PC that's a match for the Amiga DPaint series :(

The number one feature missing from most modern art software is the ability to see two different zoom levels at once (zoomed in close, and maybe a 2x-3x zoom, so see something close to 'actual pixels' at the game's target resolution)

The number two feature - it may seem a bit too picky - but I've never seen a PC mouse pointer move as smoothly as the Amiga mouse pointer. Even with a high-end 'gaming mouse' claiming silly numbers of DPI and Hz...

Just rose tinted glasses? That and that pixel art always looked sweeter on CRT screens, which we were all using back in those days?...

FYI Photoshop supports as many different windows for one document all at different zoom levels as you want. And most every decent art program (including GraphicsGale, which I use) supports at least 1 active and one preview each at independent zoom levels. As to mouse accuracy, maybe you just need to turn off acceleration and/or set sensitivity lower. It's a personal thing I guess.
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beetlefeetJul 23 '10 at 4:08

3

Cosmigo pro-motion is a pretty good DPaint clone, with some added features (love their tile editing). cosmigo.com/promotion/index.php Can't vouch for the mouse pointer smoothness though. Maybe if you turn down your screen resolution to the one the Amiga worked at you'll get better results. Also, maybe switch to a ball mouse as you did back then, the tactile feedback is simply not there.
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KajJul 25 '10 at 2:38

I like and use GG. And even though it's shareware it's very cheap. Little quirks that I've noticed are no support for multiple animations per file and some esoteric UI eg palette manipulation. Other great features are seeing your pixel 'cursor' realtime on the preview, very customizable key bindings and simply and easy exporting animations to sprite sheets.
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beetlefeetJul 23 '10 at 4:17

Pro-motion by cosmigo, a Deluxe Paint clone does it for me. DPaint is more or less the oldskool pixeling standard. Nowadays, with people don't knowing about palettes and stuff it seems PhotoShop is more in vogue.

I vote on Pro-Motion. I'm not an artist but those I worked with 10 years ago swear by it. It has a steep learning curve but it's the closest you get (and actually surpasses) the good old DPaint.
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LearnCocos2DJul 25 '10 at 21:59

For pure 2D pixel art, i'd say Aseprite for the win. With v.9.1 out, so much has been added and improved.

Its open source, no catch.
Constantly being updated and improved.
It has:
Layers support
Proper alpha channel unlike GraphicsGale.. meh!,
Has onion skinning.
Color palette ramp.
Simple and much cleaner UI.
Unlimited undo options.
Mini editor.
Import/export sprite sheets option.
Split view for more freedom and so on, and none of the "overrated" and "out of this world" stuffs you would get from this blah and this bleh.

GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

If you want really good graphics with shadows and other automatic effects then you should probably consider software for creating cartoons.
For this purpose you can use Pencil, Synfig Animation Studio, Tapptoons Linetester, eDrawings.

If you want to create a 2d sprite animation for 2D game and you really want to save your time then you can consider Flash software or the Anatomy animator.
The later is cross-platform and can work with hinged bones (skeletal animation).

I have used Photoshop for years through my work, but couldn't quite justify the cost of personal development, so I have taken up Gimp and Inkscape. I use Gimp for handrawn stuff and Inkscape for UI elements where vector graphics is a bit more predictable.

Both have quirks (especially on the Mac) which take some getting used to, but overall I am pretty happy with them.

Photoshop Elements (the cut-rate version of Photoshop) is better than most people think. You can find a lot of negative reviews about it, and for a professional photographer, it may not be good enough. It definitely has less capability, like 8-bit color instead of 16-bit color. But for a game developer, 8-bit color is plenty :) (That's 8 bits per RGB channel, it's also called 24-bit). And the few features that a gamedev would need which are missing (like alpha channel masks), can actually be added using simple workarounds.

(Note the link is for Elements 7 - it's cheaper than version 8, and 8 didn't get great reviews).

-1 Your answer lacks any kind of proof to your statements, that additionally I find wrong. "Vector graphics are great for games" - I've seen many flash games optimized by rasterizing it's assets on initialization in runtime, because graphics-cards are designed for bitmaps, not vectors.
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Markus von BroadyOct 11 '12 at 8:48